Hi, Ho.

Working girl.

Flash back one year ago, you would probably find me sitting in my cubicle at work, typing furiously, brow in permanent furrow. Fall is typically the busy season for the magazine advertising business, and last year, Fall started in July for me. For four straight months, I worked like a madman, logging 10 to 12 hours most days of the week. My to-do list was three pages long—typed. I could barely keep up with the projects, the clients, the deadlines, let alone the constant stream of emails bombarding my in-box. I was often the last one to leave the office. The lights would flicker off while I sat at my computer, a reminder that it was time to go home. The weekends offered no reprieve. I traveled across the country, working advertiser events in dreary suburban malls and staying in hotels overlooking concrete parking lots.

At the end of the night, when I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized my reflection. My skin looked pale. My eyes dull and void. Myself, a stranger.

That September, on one of the only weekends I wasn’t working, I traveled to Lake Tahoe for the wedding of my friends Lindsey and Clay. It was a small wedding. Most of the wedding party and guests stayed together in the same cabin. As usual, I had trouble relaxing. While everyone seemed content sitting around in the living room and talking, I felt the need to be doing something.

One night, I ran outside the cabin to get a bag out of my rental car when I looked up and noticed the sky.

It was magnificent.

It was one of those skies you see only in the movies or in a planetarium—so pretty, it looked nearly fake—a navy blue blanket streaked with clusters of flickering, glittering stars. In many spots, there were so many stars you couldn’t pick them out individually. Some shone so brightly and twinkled in a way that they appeared to be moving.

For the first time in a long time, I stopped. I watched. Standing alone on the driveway, shivering in the cold, the sky seemed so big and vast, and I so small. I marveled the simplicity of its beauty, the quiet of the night. Humbled, I realized how long it had been since I noticed the sky.

I started to cry. I wasn’t exactly sure the reason. There seemed to be many.

A few minutes later, Lindsey came outside to look for me. I wiped my tears so she wouldn’t see, commented on the beautiful night and followed her back into the cabin.